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Orthrus
1,203 M Little Steps 3
PathStep 85 Compassion hearts45 Forum posts128 Forum upvotes159 Current upvotes159 Age GroupAdult Last activeJuly, 2023 Member sinceMarch 11, 2016
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Trying to make peace with my situation
Depression Support / by Orthrus
Last post
 July 10th, 2023
...See more I'm not going to go into too many details as there's too much to explain and things to get sidetracked by but, suffice it to say that my situation is not what people would call 'normal' for my age and society would expect 'more' of me, yet it's not as simple as outsiders would think/claim it would be for them. There are certain obstacles, both mentally and physically, that has had me in a sort of limbo for the past couple of years and to be honest is not something I see changing. On the one hand, I feel like I am resigned to it, I will never have more than I have now. On the other hand, it scares me. Am I really living, what is happiness, what is satisfaction with one's life. I haven't worked in some time, I don't have much of an interest in anything and I don't know of anything new I would have an interest in, I'm not very social as I get anxiety from socializing, yet I fear the day when I might truly be alone and, unless I meet an untimely end, that day will happen. Often things I do have an interest in falls by the wayside due to a lack of energy or I get halfway through, just to lose interest and when I want to revisit it I feel I have to start over, making it so I don't really have a stable focus point in my life. In fact, when I do have a focus point, I get hyper-focused to the detriment of all else. I have at times wondered about people who have very limited to no control over their lives, paraplegics, the blind. How do you find satisfaction in your life when all you can do is move your head or can only partially experience the world around you. I am far from being paraplegic or blind though I do have some, comparatively small, difficulties. How do I find satisfaction and happiness, given my situation. How do I even know whether what I have is enough when my emotions are driven by depression. I have somewhat accepted that the depression, et al, is being handled as best it can and that this is as good as it's going to get. I won't have clarity and stability the way that I have had glimpses of from time to time, my life will forever be ruled by the subtle undertones of depression, anxiety and limitations of physical ability. These thoughts in and of themselves is enough to drive one to despair and looking for ways 'out'. How does one find meaning, in the mundane. How does one find happiness in the mere fact that you are alive.
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Chronic pain recovery ... at a complete loss
Disability Support / by Orthrus
Last post
 October 21st, 2021
...See more Some might find this a very strange situation to be anxious and/or stressed about, but this is in all sincerity a very daunting and overwhelming prospect for me. I don't even know if I should post this here as it somehow feels wrong, but I genuinely don't know where to turn. I feel like I am stuck between two worlds ... is there even such a thing as "post chronic pain support" I have had a major shift in my life and am utterly stunned/shocked. For virtually my entire life, I have been struggling with chronic pain. Two weeks ago, I was started on a new regimen for "afferent barrage"/hyperalgesia, suspected to be as a result of either acute injury or excessive pain associated with a connective tissue disorder diagnosed at age 28. It took two weeks to slowly reach therapeutic level, and the joint issues still persists as well as the associated pain, but virtually all the "background" pain has now gone and, having grown up with the perception that constant pain is somehow "normal", it is an utterly foreign and confusing sensation to me. I now sit, walk and sleep more comfortably, literally everything I do I get giggles over as I keep expecting pain, yet all I feel is the almost soothing sensation of the absence of it. The biggest revelation, and one which utterly shook me to the core, came when I had to wrangle my dog to the vet today and was expecting to be in excruciating pain when I got home ... and yet there was nothing aside from this comfortable sensation that somehow gently tried to tell me I am tired? This wasn't funny any more, this was scary, heart wrenching and confusing all at the same time. The thought that "being tired doesn't and shouldn't hurt" nor that it is something that is/should be "hard" to bear as my experience had been up until this point, had me utterly in tears in that moment. I feel lost and torn over the past 42 years of suffering with pain that I didn't even comprehend the extent of till now. I'm angry over the career and opportunities I have lost despite a diagnosis of Bipolar having played a not so insignificant role. I'm even considering that perhaps the psychological effects of the chronic pain that overlaps that of Bipolar, was hiding an all together different underlying issue other than a mood disorder. I don't know what normal is, at all. I don't know what tired should feel like or natural muscle fatigue or muscle strain from being unfit. I have to learn all over what my limits are and how to guard and protect my sensitive joints. I am scared that without the background pain limiting my activity, I won't be as careful and might end up injuring myself more frequently. I need to reassess whether I finally can and/or should attempt simple exercises like walking around the block, something which is still limited by my bad knees but which seems a lot more achievable without the constant pain I used to feel while moving/walking. Altering course, dodging obstacles and just staying upright demanded effort and concentration in order to avoid pain as much as possible. Now, I just get up unassisted and walk without a care and it has me flabbergasted. I need to figure out whether I should attempt to return to the job market. I still can't drive as my patella slips when using the pedals, elbow hyper extends and my hands start feeling like someone hit them with a ten pound hammer from gripping and manipulating the steering wheel, but still, getting a lift and/or working from home may be an option. Perhaps I can now even attempt to reinvest time into writing my own software again. Then again, I still have the fear of the Bipolar, or what ever it is/is left of it derailing things and dumping me into crisis ... again, not to mention the uncertain nature of the future of software and software development. I don't know what else I could/would do though. And perhaps I am moving too fast and thinking too far. It's only been two weeks and if the efficacy of this treatment doesn't last, I am going to be even more shattered. I am just, completely and utterly overwhelmed and shocked and I don't know how to move forward or what to live for, strive for or attempt and not attempt. Just about everything has changed and should change, as doing any less would be wholly ungrateful. I'm just completely at a loss 😳
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Hope, can hurt...
Journals & Diaries / by Orthrus
Last post
 October 14th, 2021
...See more The pain flares has me frustrated and exhausted. It hurts, it drains my body to the extent that I constantly feel as though I have just come back from a mountain hike, but I'm "used" to it. Still, it's frustrating. I lack energy to do things, moving around hurts, staying in one spot for too long hurts, being told not to worry about chores hurts ... because I want to matter. Pain is part of my life and has been since I can remember. Whether I exert myself or not, I will have pain, sometimes inexplicabbly, sometimes avoidably, so I may as well do the things that will cause me pain. Yet, those around me noticing my pain, hurts them and that hurts, so I acquiesce to their requests to leave things be when i'm in the middle of a flare. Still, it remains frustrating. I can work, I can concentrate and focus and do all of the things that matter ... but not consistently enough. If you can't be productive all of the time, you are a liability and it only takes a single wave to knock you out of that equation. When a flare hits, focus and concentration goes out the window and productivity with it ... rationality most crucially too. I constantly fear having forgotten something or that there is something that needs attention that I am overlooking but I'm powerless to do anything about it. I just don't have the energy and there is no such thing as "chronic leave" or "sporadic employment". It is surprising just how taxing pain is on ones brain. I don't always realize that or think of it in that sense. A person gets fatigued from physical activity, from concentrating hard, from thinking. The idea that constantly having to process the pain is tiring to my brain is hard for me to associate with "fatigue", yet it is, and apparently with good reason too. The way the pain specialist explained it to me is that the chronic inflammation and pain from my unstable joints, or "afferent barrage", leads to what is called "central sensitisation", or hyper sensitivity to pain, making a bad situation worse. This constant hammering of pain has the added tendency to overwhelm the "pain gate", as it is called, that is supposed to prevent normal sensations such as touch and temperature from being transmitted as pain so I get phases of hyperalgesia, or oversensitivity to touch causing simple things like handshakes or hugs to hurt when it shouldn't. I'm "used" to it though and I should be. After all I have been living with it sinse I can remember ... but it remains frustrating, debilitating even. What's even worse, is the periods inbetween flares. Ironically, that is when it's most "painfull" of all ... The cruelist act, is not in depriving someone of hope but rather fostering hope where it can not last.
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Frustrated
Disability Support / by Orthrus
Last post
 October 14th, 2021
...See more September is consistently a pain-flare month and it's frustrating, tiring and, well ... painful.
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Over did it, but I'm fine
Disability Support / by Orthrus
Last post
 June 20th, 2021
...See more We needed to sell my father's caravan and I over did it a bit with physically manhandling things. My uncle was kind enough to do the driving as my knees can barely handle driving a normal car, let alone my dad's doublecab pickup with a caravan in tow to boot, but as stubborn as I tend to be I didn't let him do all of the physical work. Had to drop the hitch on the pickup as it was set up for a trailer which was too high for the caravan, was crawling around on the ground to lift the stabalising legs, manhandled the tow-hitch to get the caravan to seat properly and then the journey took almost an hour, which in it self generally enflames my entire body. Combine that with the winter cold weather, my knee's are rather angry with me, my whole body hurts and is inflamed and my neck/shoulder is tight/in spasm again. The thing is though, I'm fine. I'm used to the physical pain and to my body's quirks from the connective tissue disorder. It's easier to cope with than the Bipolar.
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Dissociation? Distress from Intrusive "Neutral" Memories?
Trauma Support / by Orthrus
Last post
 June 18th, 2021
...See more This is something I have struggled with for some years and it's one of those things that I never really discussed in detail with a therapist, either due to the fact that Bipolar can have so many different nuances or that I didn't know how to verbalise what I experience. This happens most notably with social interaction, in that after wards, I would get intrusive "memory flashbacks", even weeks after the social interaction sometimes, similar to what you would get from a car accident or traumatic event. However, the memory flashback is not either excessively traumatic or traumatic at all to begin with. It can be very simple things like something I said, the way I greeted someone, a action and/or even decision. It doesn't even have to be social, I only mention the social aspect as it's the most intense with social interactions. Is this dissociative, as during the moment that I have the "flashback" I feel literally as though I am in the moment and feels like I'm having 'hindsight' anguish and distress over the memory even when there is no call to be distressed and it lingers for some time afterwards and I have to battle to not keep going down the "rabbit hole" of overthinking and rumenation. I have tried acknowledging it, ignoring it, proving it wrong, suppressing it, but it just replay's again after a while till it somehow "resolves" itself or gets replace by a different memory. As of late, with the passing of my dad, it's been becoming increasingly unmanageable, potentially from the additional emotional stress perhaps? Either way, I want to ask if someone can relate to and/or can explain what I experience and whether it is generally something that one experience with Bipolar or something alltogether different. I've been diagnosed since 2008 and am on medication, but just always thought of this particular aspect to be just another symptom I have to manage/live with. It's just getting extremely hard to do so.
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